Collected Works of Poe, Edgar Allan Poe [best mobile ebook reader TXT] 📗

O ! were there an island, Tho' ever so wild Where woman might smile, and No man be beguil'd, &c.

Whose sleep hath been taken Beneath the cold moon, As the spell which no slumber Of witchery may test, The rythmical number Which lull'd him to rest ?"

Spirits in wing, and angels to the view, A thousand seraphs burst th' Empyrean thro', Young dreams still hovering on their drowsy flight - Seraphs in all but "Knowledge," the keen light That fell, refracted, thro' thy bounds, afar O Death ! from eye of God upon that star: Sweet was that error - sweeter still that death - Sweet was that error - ev'n with us the breath Of science dims the mirror of our joy - To them 'twere the Simoom, and would destroy - For what (to them) availeth it to know That Truth is Falsehood - or that Bliss is Woe ? Sweet was their death - with them to die was rife With the last ecstacy of satiate life - Beyond that death no immortality - But sleep that pondereth and is not "to be" - And there - oh ! may my weary spirit dwell - *Apart from Heaven's Eternity - and yet how far from Hell !

* With the Arabians there is a medium between Heaven and Hell, where men suffer no punishment, but yet do not attain that tranquil and even happiness which they suppose to be characteristic of heavenly enjoyment. Un no rompido sueno - Un dia puro - allegre - libre Quiera - Libre de amor - de zelo - De odio - de esperanza - de rezelo. - _Luis Ponce de Leon_. Sorrow is not excluded from "Al Aaraaf," but it is that sorrow which the living love to cherish for the dead, and which, in some minds, resembles the delirium of opium. The passionate excitement of Love and the buoyancy of spirit attendant upon intoxication are its less holy pleasures - the price of which, to those souls who make choice of "Al Aaraaf" as their residence after life, is final death and annihilation.

What guilty spirit, in what shrubbery dim, Heard not the stirring summons of that hymn ? But two : they fell : for Heaven no grace imparts To those who hear not for their beating hearts. A maiden-angel and her seraph-lover - O ! where (and ye may seek the wide skies over) Was Love, the blind, near sober Duty known ? *Unguided Love hath fallen - 'mid "tears of perfect moan."

He was a goodly spirit - he who fell : A wanderer by moss-y-mantled well - A gazer on the lights that shine above - A dreamer in the moonbeam by his love : What wonder ? For each star is eye-like there, And looks so sweetly down on Beauty's hair - And they, and ev'ry mossy spring were holy To his love-haunted heart and melancholy. The night had found (to him a night of wo) Upon a mountain crag, young Angelo - Beetling it bends athwart the solemn sky, And scowls on starry worlds that down beneath it lie. Here sate he with his love - his dark eye bent With eagle gaze along the firmament: Now turn'd it upon her - but ever then It trembled to the orb of EARTH again.

"Iante, dearest, see ! how dim that ray ! How lovely 'tis to look so far away !

There be tears of perfect moan Wept for thee in Helicon.- Milton.

She seem'd not thus upon that autumn eve I left her gorgeous halls - nor mourn'd to leave. That eve - that eve - I should remember well - The sun-ray dropp'd, in Lemnos, with a spell On th'Arabesque carving of a gilded hall Wherein I sate, and on the draperied wall - And on my eye-lids - O the heavy light ! How drowsily it weigh'd them into night ! On flowers, before, and mist, and love they ran With Persian Saadi in his Gulistan : But O that light! - I slumber'd - Death, the while, Stole o'er my senses in that lovely isle So softly that no single silken hair Awoke that slept - or knew that it was there.

The last spot of Earth's orb I trod upon * Was a proud temple call'd the Parthenon - More beauty clung around her column'd wall �Than ev'n thy glowing bosom beats withal, And when old Time my wing did disenthral Thence sprang I - as the eagle from his tower, And years I left behind me in an hour. What time upon her airy bounds I hung One half the garden of her globe was flung Unrolling as a chart unto my view - Tenantless cities of the desert too ! Ianthe, beauty crowded on me then, And half I wish'd to be again of men."

"My Angelo! and why of them to be ? A brighter dwelling-place is here for thee -

* It was entire in 1687 - the most elevated spot in Athens. � Shadowing more beauty in their airy brows Than have the white breasts of the Queen of Love. - _Marlowe._

And greener fields than in yon world above, And women's loveliness - and passionate love."

"But, list, Ianthe! when the air so soft *Fail'd, as my pennon'd spirit leapt aloft, Perhaps my brain grew dizzy - but the world I left so late was into chaos hurl'd - Sprang from her station, on the winds apart, And roll'd, a flame, the fiery Heaven athwart. Methought, my sweet one, then I ceased to soar And fell - not swiftly as I rose before, But with a downward, tremulous motion thro' Light, brazen rays, this golden star unto! Nor long the measure of my falling hours, For nearest of all stars was thine to ours - Dread star! that came, amid a night of mirth, A red D�dalion on the timid Earth.

"We came - and to thy Earth - but not to us Be given our lady's bidding to discuss: We came, my love; around, above, below, Gay fire-fly of the night we come and go, Nor ask a reason save the angel-nod _ She_ grants to us, as granted by her God - But, Angelo, than thine grey Time unfurl'd Never his fairy wing o'er fairier world ! Dim was its little disk, and angel eyes Alone could see the phantom in the skies, When first Al Aaraaf knew her course to be Headlong thitherward o'er the starry sea - But when its glory swell'd upon the sky, As glowing Beauty's bust beneath man's eye,

Pennon - for pinion. - Milton.

We paus'd before the heritage of men, And thy star trembled - as doth Beauty then !"

Thus, in discourse, the lovers whiled away The night that waned and waned and brought no day. They fell : for Heaven to them no hope imparts Who hear not for the beating of their hearts.

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TAMERLANE

KIND solace in a dying hour! Such, father, is not (now) my theme - I will not madly deem that power Of Earth may shrive me of the sin Unearthly pride hath revell'd in - I have no time to dote or dream: You call it hope - that fire of fire! It is but agony of desire: If I can hope - Oh God! I can - Its fount is holier - more divine - I would not call thee fool, old man, But such is not a gift of thine.

Know thou the secret of a spirit Bow'd from its wild pride into shame. O! yearning heart! I did inherit Thy withering portion with the fame, The searing glory which hath shone Amid the jewels of my throne, Halo of Hell! and with a pain Not Hell shall make me fear again - O! craving heart, for the lost flowers And sunshine of my summer hours! Th' undying voice of that dead time, With its interminable chime, Rings, in the spirit of a spell, Upon thy emptiness - a knell.

I have not always been as now: The fever'd diadem on my brow I claim'd and won usurpingly - Hath not the same fierce heirdom given Rome to the Caesar - this to me? The heritage of a kingly mind, And a proud spirit which hath striven Triumphantly with human kind.

On mountain soil I first drew life: The mists of the Taglay have shed Nightly their dews upon my head, And, I believe, the winged strife And tumult of the headlong air Have nestled in my very hair.

So late from Heaven - that dew - it fell (Mid dreams of an unholy night) Upon me - with the touch of Hell, While the red flashing of the light From clouds that hung, like banners, o'er, Appeared to my half-closing eye The pageantry of monarchy, And the deep trumpet-thunder's roar Came hurriedly upon me, telling Of human battle,